The Room premiered on June 27, 2003 at the Laemmle Fairfax and Fallbrook theaters in Los Angeles. Wiseau additionally arranged a screening for the cast and the press at one of the venues, renting a spotlight to sit in front of the theater and arriving in a limousine. Ticket buyers were given a free copy of the film's soundtrack on CD. Although Robyn Paris recalled the audience laughing at the film, Variety reporter Scott Foundas, who was also in attendance, would later write that the film prompted "most of its viewers to ask for their money back — before even 30 minutes [had] passed." IFC.com described Wiseau's speaking voice in the film as "Borat trying to do an impression of Christopher Walken playing a mental patient." The Guardian called the film a mix of "Tennessee Williams, Ed Wood, R. Kelly's Trapped in the Closet".

The film currently holds an approval rating of 35% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Room played in the Laemmle Fairfax and Fallbrook for the next two weeks, grossing a total of $1,800 before it was pulled from circulation. During one showing the second week of its run, the sole audience member in attendance was 5secondfilms' Michael Rousselet, who found unintentional humor in the film's poor dialogue and production values. After treating the screening as his "own private Mystery Science Theater", Rousselet began calling friends on his cell phone during the ending credits, encouraging them to come to the theater and join him in mocking the film for its next showing. After joining Rousselet, his friends began a word-of-mouth campaign that resulted in about 100 attending the film's final screening.

After the film was pulled from theaters, those who had attended the final showing began e-mailing Wiseau telling him how much they had enjoyed the film. Encouraged by the volume of letters he received, Wiseau arranged to book a single, midnight screening of The Room in June 2004. With the film having developed a word-of-mouth reputation as "the worst movie ever made", the screening proved successful enough that Wiseau booked a second showing in July, which itself spawned a third showing in August.

Demand for tickets soon rose to the point that Wiseau had to book the midnight showing on two screens before ultimately scheduling showings at multiple theaters around Los Angeles. Several celebrities became fans of the film, including Paul Rudd, David Cross, Will Arnett, Patton Oswalt, and Kristen Bell, and they began to promote the film to friends and co-stars. Bell and Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas were particularly aggressive in attempting to spread word of the film, slipping references into episodes of Mars "as much as possible". The film eventually developed national as well as international cult status, with Wiseau arranging screenings around the United States and in Canada, Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The film now shows on the last Saturday of every month at the Laemmle in Los Angeles, with tickets regularly selling out in advance. Fans interact with the film in a similar fashion to The Rocky Horror Picture Show; audience members dress up as their favorite characters, throw plastic spoons (a reference to an unexplained framed photo of a spoon on a table in Johnny's living room), toss footballs to each other from short distances, and yell insulting comments about the quality of the film as well as lines from the film itself. Other cinemas regularly showing The Room include The Drexel Theater in Bexley Ohio, which shows it on the second Saturday of every month at midnight, The Mayfair Theatre in Ottawa, who hold a screening every month, the Metrocinema in Edmonton who screen the film the first Friday of every month, and the Coolidge Corner Playhouse in Boston, which shows the film approximately four times a year, and the Prince Charles Cinema in London, which has monthly screenings and a permanent sign outside advertising the building as 'The London Home of The Room'.

This is the funniest fucking film in the history of mankind (unintentionally so). It will produce laughter in you akin to if you were on pot watching any other movie; I can't imagine what it is like watching it on drugs. The film is a constant string of horrible deliveries of already bizarre dialogue and the main character sounds and acts like Jean-Claude Van Damme with down syndrome.

A must see.

Bodybuilding related, the main character looks rather ripped in the first sex scene.

Low budget, shitty acting and actors, ugly chick driving 2 guys in love, 2 best friends ..... sorry shitty plot, common and done 100000000000 times. I would not watch this if you payed me. In fact I am a little pissed that the trailer took 2 min of my time, lol.

Syntax is employing hyperbole in the post heading. Hyperbole is sometimes taken literally, and can lead those without the capacity for nuance to draw what the logician Irving Copi called "irrelevant conclusions." Clearly, or it should be clear, he's suggesting that The Room is so bad, it's good. Aestheticians call it appreciating "bad" art.

(Bodybuilding related because the word 'homo' is embedded in the film's title)

Syntax is employing hyperbole in the post heading. Hyperbole is sometimes taken literally, and can lead those without the capacity for nuance to draw, what the logician Irving Copi called, "irrelevant conclusions." Clearly, or it should be clear, he's suggesting that The Room is so bad, it's good. Aestheticians call it appreciating "bad" art.

(Bodybuilding related because the word 'homo' is embedded in the film's title)